


Our Warped Timelapse of Love (Or Something Like It)

by overthemoon



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Post Reichenbach, Pre-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overthemoon/pseuds/overthemoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out of context, the memory snippets never make sense.  It's only when they're strung together that the pieces can form the whole of who we are. - SH</p><p>Highlights of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Warped Timelapse of Love (Or Something Like It)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Interrosand and Tiltedsyllogism for the betawork!  
> Thank you to [arianedevere](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/) for the lovely transcripts.  
> Inspired by [this gifset.](http://thedoctorsjawn.tumblr.com/post/47126915362)  
> [CONSULTINGSMARTASS MADE ME A PODFIC](http://www.mediafire.com/listen/qbcg1bevchoz7ps/Our+Warped+Timelapse+of+Love+%28Or+Something+Like+It%29.mp3) AND I CAN'T STOP SQUEEING!

Sherlock doesn’t understand why laughing this hard hurts. The grin on his face isn’t forcibly plastered for once; genuine euphoria instead of distraction fills his mind. John leans against the wall next to him and chuckles. Sherlock smiles back. (Mirror neurons activating. For John.)

“Okay, that was ridiculous,” John says. (That was wonderful.) “That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.”

(That was fantastic. John is fantastic.) Sherlock makes a quip about Afghanistan and allows himself a bubble of anticipatory happiness as he shouts at Mrs Hudson, “Doctor Watson will take the room upstairs.”

* * *

  
Too many people are talking inside this Tube car and Sherlock can’t switch cars without losing the suspect he’s tailing. His expression of distress must be apparent to John, because John reaches across the aisle and grips Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock blinks in surprise, finding himself gripping John’s warm hand tighter as the Tube sways around a turn. (Accumulated calluses on the palm, second, and third finger. Gun use. For me. Slightly dehydrated skin - probably leaving hand lotion around the flat will work. John can take a hint.)

“He’s getting off at the next stop,” Sherlock says, bringing up his other hand to grip the pole. “Get ready.”

John squeezes Sherlock’s hand and nods. “Okay,” John says.

Sherlock files away the exact texture of John’s hands into his memory palace before they get off the Tube. Just in case.

* * *

 

John tastes of tea and marmalade and morning breath. Sherlock pulls John in closer and presses his whole body against John’s. “Hello,” John manages to fit between kisses. Sherlock smiles against John’s mouth. (Good morning.)

“What’s this all about then?” John asks, smiling back. Sherlock gives John another quick kiss. (You’re still here. You’re still here.)

* * *

 

Sherlock finds that he relishes the heavy weight of John’s body; it anchors him. John moans and grinds down. Sherlock chases John’s huffs, trying to taste the desire they’re both emanating in waves.

“John,” Sherlock whispers. John grips Sherlock’s hips possessively and rubs their erections together. Sherlock moans and slides his hands down John’s muscled back. (God, he’s so warm. How does he not overheat in those jumpers?) “John,” Sherlock whispers again.

John slides one hand between them to stroke carefully, gently. (Lovingly.)

Sherlock’s heartrate spikes; Sherlock’s breathing stutters and stretches out. John’s eyes glow blue as ecstasy floods their systems. Succumbing to bodily desire, Sherlock finds, is not as distasteful as he expected it to be, not when John lazily maps the contours of his chest and half-heartedly mutters about feeding Sherlock more frequently.

Sherlock blinks and looks down at John’s dirty blond head, leaning against his bony ribs. (So this is sentiment. This is what other people are so desperate to die for.)

 

* * *

 

(Breathing in John’s shedded skin cells.) Sherlock leans in, trying to imprint the texture of John’s lips on his skin. (No metaphysical way to meld us together, unfortunately.) Sherlock can feel the wrinkles of John’s frown lines with the tip of his nose. John’s nervous blinking creates tiny flutters against Sherlock’s cheek. (Not yet. Not now.)

John pulls his head back, worry etched into the corners of his eyes. “Don’t do that,” John says.  
Sherlock says, “Do what?” (I’d much rather be doing a lot of things but there isn’t enough bloody time.)  
“The look,” John says.  
“Look?” Sherlock slides his hands down to John’s wrists, strokes his fingers across the quickly beating pulse, evidence of John’s heart.  
John persists, “You’re doing the look again.”  
“Well, I can’t see it, can I?” Sherlock says, closing his eyes and kissing John again. (Don’t want to. Can’t afford to.)  
John frowns and pushes Sherlock back. Sherlock scowls and follows John’s finger to the mirror. “It’s my face,” Sherlock says, and turns away. John takes a step back.  
“Yes, and it’s doing a thing. You’re doing a “we both know what’s really going on here” face.”

“Well, we do.”

John sits down heavily in his armchair. “No. I don’t, which is why I find The Face so annoying,” John says.

(I kiss you good morning and make concessions about body parts in the fridge and don’t comment on your girlfriends anymore because you don’t have girlfriends. You have me. We share the same bed and I don’t know why I find the sound of your sleep snuffling so soothing, but I do. We haven’t said anything yet, but we don’t need to, do we?)

John gives Sherlock a look of his own. (It should be enough. Words are merely formalities; you killed a man for me the night we met.)

“Moriarty,” Sherlock says instead, turning away. “He wouldn’t have willingly walked into custody if he wasn’t assured that someone would be waiting to give the reins back to him.” Sherlock closes his eyes. Think, think! “If we can track down his second while Moriarty is still in custody, we’ll be able to unravel a lot of Moriarty’s structure.”

John says warningly, “Sherlock.” Sherlock waves his hands irritably.

“There has to be someone to take care of the day to day details. Moriarty; he loves theatrics, dramatics. But there must be paperwork somewhere, and someone else will be doing it for him.” John sighs in the background; Sherlock ignores him. Moriarty told Sherlock that he would burn the heart out of him. (John.) “Moriarty couldn’t have gotten into those places without help. He has a network, and without it, he’s just another deluded man.”

Sherlock keeps spinning and pacing, spitting out theories. He tells himself it doesn’t matter that John walks out of the room, stops listening to him, and instead keeps talking to the skull. (It has to be good enough. I have to be good enough.)

* * *

 

He can’t stop squeezing the rubber ball, can’t stop bouncing it. The puzzle is almost complete. (Molly is arranging the body; the homeless network is in place; John is coming soon; Moriarty, dear Jim, is waiting.) Jim’s riddle is almost solved. Sherlock throws the ball at the floor, catches it as it bounces off the cabinet.

Moriarty is the villain in a fairytale, and what do the villains in fairytales do? They die to teach naughty children a lesson. The children might change, grow old, but the lesson is timeless: Moriarty had whispered it at the swimming pool; Mycroft reminded Sherlock in the morgue with a cigarette. Caring is not an advantage. Hearts are meant to burn.

Sherlock reasserts control over his grief, retreating back into the cold consulting detective from before John. Back to puzzles and games, data and patterns.

He bounces the ball until it becomes a steady rhythm of rubbery thuds on tile. Sherlock thinks he should regret falling so far, that he’ll be falling further, and possibly beyond the rock bottom of John’s loyalty.

He thinks about the way John’s sad eyes lit up for the first time, over dinner at Angelo’s. The door opens; John walks into the lab, scowling and furious.

(Falling’s just like flying, except there’s a more permanent destination.)

* * *

 

Appearing with torn and blood soaked clothing in an airport isn’t a good idea. Sherlock trades his torn business suit for jeans and a hoodie. There’s not much he can do about the scrapes and blood on his face, but he washes it as best he can and heads off to the next flight out of Colombia.

He buys a cup of tea from an airport vendor. The water is overboiled; they used a teabag instead of loose leaves, which Sherlock likes. Objectively, the tea is terrible and bitter, as rubbish as airport tea can be, and doesn’t contain nearly enough caffeine to last Sherlock through the seven hour flight that lies ahead. Sherlock sips at the bitter burned leaf water and thinks that he doesn’t mind, because if he closes his eyes and does enough pretending, he can smell the steam and pretend that John is smiling at him and handing him a warm mug of tea that John made.

The scent of gun oil still lingers on Sherlock’s own hands from last night, and if he thinks hard enough past the smell of truly rubbish airport tea, he can pretend together the scents are John. Just for a bit. He can pretend it’s that time John giggled after shooting a man for him, the first time, and thinks that even if he has to spend more years away from home, if John is safe and alive, this _might_ be worth it.

* * *

 

(I’m not-)

Sherlock sits on their sofa. John’s sofa. His head feels dizzy. John will be home soon. He thinks he should be thinking, only the end of that thought doesn’t exist yet. He’s not-

The empty spots in the flat keep drawing his eyes in: the skull no longer sits on the mantlepiece; the yellow smiley face has been papered over; the cow skull no longer hangs next to the window. (Boxed away. Mycroft said they’d been put in storage.) Sherlock exhales loudly (discordantly) and roots around for the sound of John’s sleepy breathing, just before he wakes up on a Saturday morning with a 60% chance of responding to hints of sleepy morning sex. He bites his lip, tightens his lungs and tries again. (Not good enough.)

He hears the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs, each thump saying, John, John, John. Sherlock forces himself to watch the door. (I forced him to watch; I had to; I have to-)

John opens the door. John’s face is a slideshow of pain-betrayal-shock-disbelief-anger. John marches over, coat half off, punches Sherlock’s nose; Sherlock can’t move but he bleeds again. John leans his forehead against Sherlock and Sherlock cannot tell the difference between his tears and John’s.

Sherlock clings to John and pulls him close and they breathe together and there are no right words. (You’re- You’re not-)

John is breathing. John _is_.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me the happiest person ever. (And Kudos too.) Thanks for reading!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Our Warped Timelapse of Love (Or Something Like It)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072366) by [consulting_smartass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consulting_smartass/pseuds/consulting_smartass)




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